


Perspectives of Bulimia

by shiju333



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Gen, has this been done before?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiju333/pseuds/shiju333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia loves chocolate, candies, and chips, much to her parents' chagrin--even to the point of hiding an assortment in her room. What happens when her love for junk foods borders on unhealthy? People are starting to notice something is wrong with Claudia. Told from different POVs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jessi

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure where I am headed with this. This is an idea that popped in my head (brand new fanfiction!), and wouldn't leave me alone. This takes place in 1988, which is about the original timeline Claudia would be in the spring of eight grade. This takes place after book 61, but I'm not quite sure when else, since the BSC timeline is so muddled.

I was washing my hands in the bathroom, when the retching started. I felt my eyebrows rise, and, if I had glanced in the mirror above the sinks, I’m sure my surprise would be evident. I whipped around at the familiarity of the voice of the poor kid getting sick. Peeking under the stall door, the bright purple (splattered with neon pink paint) converse confirmed my suspicions. I remained rooted to my spot near the sinks, until the retching died to little choked gasps, and the toilet flushed.

“Are you alright?” I asked Claudia as she exited the stall. Her appearance did not show any outward signs of illness; had I not just overheard the strangled vomiting for the last few minutes, I would have assumed she was all right

Her almond shaped eyes widened to two ovals. She brushed past me to the sink and washed her hands, drawing out her response until she had rinsed the last of the soapy bubbles from her hands. A smile graced her lips, but her eyes pleaded with me. I don’t think she expected anyone to overhear her. “Yeah, I ‘m fine,” she paused to yank cheap paper roll from the dispenser.

I noticed the skin on her fingers peeling off even though she had just run her hand under water a few moments earlier. “Look, I didn’t feel well, but I’m fine now, so…” The desperation tightening her face reminded me so vividly of Mary Bramstedt, a girl in my ballet class a while back that had anorexia. Like Claudia was pleading with me to keep an awful secret.

“Claudia, you weren’t…” I wasn’t sure how to phrase the question. How does a gawky sixth grader with almost no experience with that sort of thing ask her older and much more sophisticated friend something so personal?

Luckily (or maybe not, as Claudia’s expression closed off and she sent me a freezing glare), she understood what I meant to convey. “No, Jessi!” she snapped. “Just let it drop!” She left me along in the bathroom, with the bell announcing the start of lunch period for the sixth graders and half the seventh grade class. I watched my mouth droop and my eyebrows furrow in the mirror, before I turned, and left the bathroom also.


	2. Stacey

She coughed into the back of her hand—a short laugh distorted into a hacking, sickly, cough. It interrupted Kristy’s slogan “This meeting of the Baby-Sitters Club is called to order!” A hand pressed against her visor as she sat sideways in the director’s chair, Kristy cocked an eyebrow at Claudia, before continuing.

I smirked as I held out a manila envelope amidst a chorus of groans. “Dues day, guys.” I grinned wider, a silent _pay up_. I glanced at Claudia out of the corner of my eye as I passed the envelope down to Mallory and Jessi—both looked at her with the same concerned gazes.

Whether it was the attention on her, or not, Claudia jumped up after depositing two quarters in the envelope. She handed a half eaten bag of gummy worms to Kristy along with the dues. “I’ll make something for you two,” Claudia glanced at Dawn and me as she closed the door behind her.

The phone rang, and I grabbed it first, being the closest, “Hello, Baby-Sitters Club…” The next ten minutes were filled with a flurry of phone calls; I hadn’t noticed Claudia’s lack of presence in the room, until after Kristy set the phone down after promising to call the client back momentarily. 

“Mrs. Newton needs a sitter for next Thursday, three to five,” she addressed Mary Anne, who already flipped through the schedule. She dragged a thumb down over the neat writing already penciled in as she spoke, “Claud, you’re the only one free.”

A pause.

I looked around the room, as did the rest the members, to the empty spot on her bed. “She’s not back yet?” Kristy questioned the room, as Mary Anne asked, “Where’d she go?”

“I thought she was grabbing some veggies,” Dawn offered. 

Jessi’s eyes were narrowed and her lips pursed. I lifted myself out of the desk chair as the phone rang again. “I’ll go find her,” I said to the distracted room.

I found Claudia in the kitchen finishing an arrangement of carrots, red peppers, celery with ranch. “What’s taking so long?” I winched as I heard the slight annoyance in my voice. Claudia’s mother was working late, and her father was still at the office, so the downstairs was empty. She shrugged.

When she handed me a plate, I realized her hands were trembling slightly. Immediately my gaze locked on her eyes (red rimmed and puffy), and any anger I felt melted away. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Claudia smiled, but her eyes didn’t crinkle up at the edges. She might as well have dragged a paintbrush across her lips.


End file.
